


Long Road to Blue

by burytheacorn



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Butler in action, Butler's POV, Coming of Age, Emotions, Feelings of Inadequacy, Fight Scenes, Living up to expectations, Madame Ko is a badass, Other, Proving your worth, Training, What came before Artemis, Whiffs of abandonment, Young Butler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25463014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burytheacorn/pseuds/burytheacorn
Summary: Before he was Butler, and long before Artemis became his charge, he was a struggling acolyte aiming for his Blue Diamond. He was a boy, battered and uncertain, driven only by the desire to succeed. But the road to Blue is long, and Dom will face challenges of enormous strength and character before he makes it.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	Long Road to Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place yeaaaars before Artemis Fowl is even born, but technically spoilers for The Eternity Code.

Heat erupted through his torso as the staff connected with his kneecap; the whip-crack of wood on bone rattled the paper walls of the dojo and Dom dropped to one knee, gasping.

"Again."

Blood pounded in his ears but it couldn’t drown her out. He came to his feet with a roar, dropping seamlessly into a rugged boxer’s stance despite the screaming in his shattered left knee. Sweat rivered down his body and he grunted against the pain. 

His opponent danced lightly on the balls of her feet, moving with a fluidity Dom couldn’t match. Her face was completely concealed behind a black mesh mask. She feinted right with the bo staff and Dom should have caught it, he should have caught it, but something in him still charged right to block; she changed directions in a heartbeat and swung mercilessly low to the left. He almost didn’t feel it, but there was a dull tinkling sound, like a whiskey glass shattering on tile floor, and then black spots popped in Dom’s vision. He toppled over, clutching his twice-broken knee, struggling for breath.

"Again."

Dom whimpered on the ground. Dark sweat and prickling blood had soaked the leg of his gi, and his white uniform dripped crimson onto the immaculate floor. Every pump of his heart sent a wave of fresh agony rocketing upwards from his destroyed kneecap and through the rest of his body, and his arms shook with the exertion of simply keeping in his screams. 

The opponent rocked into a low offensive stance and brandished her staff. The voice of his sensei oozed sweetly from behind her black mask, like honey full of wasps: _“Again.”_

There were no choices. This was his birthright, his destiny. Without this training, he would be nothing. Dom clenched his fists and shifted all his weight onto his right foot. _Get up. Take her down._ He staggered upwards. 

The opponent struck, raining down a flurry of blows to Dom’s chest and neck that he very nearly failed to batter away. He knew that he needed to get inside the circle of her staff, but now it seemed like the pain was the only thing keeping him upright. Movement was out of the question. His eyelids fluttered and the dojo swam before him, but still he stood and caught each blow on his black-and-blue arms. Still he survived. 

Finally the staff connected. It rang against his temple and Dom collapsed. His shattered knee hit the floor once again and against his will he screamed.

“Fool!” Madame Ko tore off her mask and threw it in front of him. It screeched across the polished cedar floor. Her voice dropped to a whisper, barely louder than the dripping of Dom’s blood. “If you are dead, the Principal is dead. And you look dead to me.” 

She left him there, broken. Dom’s consciousness faded with her footsteps. 

***

There was still a horrible hot twinge when he walked, but Dom knew that if he just ignored the knee pain long enough, eventually it would go away. If his training had taught him anything, it was that anything -- a threat, a weapon, an exit -- could be concealed; and if Madame Ko could conceal a colossal Japanese training ground in the Swiss Alps, then he could muscle through the pain of one smashed kneecap. Besides, there were no medics here; proving that he could take care of his own injuries was just another test.

There were so many tests. 

Dom gritted his teeth as he walked through the wide, empty hallways of the dojo. Wood-and-paper walls had been slid back to bare the freezing white abyss of the mountains just outside the dojo’s walls. Dom was almost used to the cold; something of his Eurasian heritage seemed to have finally awoken after months of rattling at his genes, as if demanding why he wasn’t already hardened to the brutal winters of his forebears. By now the mountain weather was just another constant -- wood floors that were ice under his bare feet, hissing drafts through cracked walls that froze his saliva and set his teeth to chattering in the night. 

Madame Ko’s office lay at the very end of the main corridor. The doors were intricately embroidered in gleaming thread from floor to ceiling, twenty feet of immaculate stitches detailing a great battle between hordes of faceless monsters and a red-and-gold dragon ridden by a tiny gilt figure. The dragon was fierce and terrible, and its eyes were set with shimmering blue diamonds. 

At the doors, Dom halted to steady himself. He breathed deeply through his nose, crisp mountain breaths, and felt his heartbeat even out. The tremble in his hands calmed. No pain. No weakness. 

He gazed into the blue diamond eyes of the dragon on the door. He knocked.

"Enter."

Dom stepped quietly into the room and slid the doors closed behind him. The space was cavernous, cold, and empty, and the entire back wall was open to the cliffside. At the very center of the room, Madame Ko knelt on a thin cushion before a low Japanese chabudai. A pot of tea steamed before her. Dom crossed the room and bowed low. 

Madame Ko gestured opposite her, where an empty cup waited. Dom arranged himself gingerly on the floor -- there was no cushion for him -- as a sharp pain slid upwards from his left knee. 

“Butler,” the tiny sensei began. She poured tea for him, pinching the hem of her wide sleeve to keep it out of the way. “You are leaving.”

Dom could hear every steaming droplet of tea slosh inside his wooden cup. His mind raced. Was Madame Ko getting rid of him? Had he failed? Where was she sending him? A cold that had nothing to do with temperature crept down his back. Had his father sent for him to come home?

Madame Ko took a long sip from her own cup. “Drink, Domovoi,” she said gently. “You have not failed.” 

Dom hadn’t even noticed his slouch until he raised his head. He stared at her, hating himself for the wave of relief coursing through his body. She had so much power over him. His hand shook as he reached out to grasp the small wooden teacup. “Is it… Did my father send for me?”

The diminutive sensei ignored Dom’s question and instead produced a small manilla folder from the depths of her draping sleeves. “You have been assigned.” 

“Assigned?” Dom hated how his voice cracked on the word. “But I’m not even --”

“I have decided,” cut in Madame Ko, “that the best test for you would be out in the field, not within these walls.” She slid the folder across the table to Dom. “You leave tonight, and I expect your quarters to be clean and empty when you go. You will be given traveling clothes, but take nothing else -- your employer will provide.”

His world was slipping, dripping, flipping sideways. A shrieky panic was rising in Dom’s chest, and he had never felt more like an unprepared thirteen-year-old than he did now. As if outside himself, he saw his body move to take the folder, felt it rise and bow respectfully to Madame Ko. He was leaving. No, she was sending him away. Whatever she might say to spare his ego, Dom knew he had failed. She was speaking to him, but he couldn’t hear over the pumping in his ears. His legs moved and his knee twinged and his fingers trembled and then he was on the other side of the door once again, at the mercy of the red-and-gold dragon and its blue diamond eyes.

Dom stalked through the wide hallways of the dojo, spitefully favoring his left knee. Not for the first time in his young life, Dom was being sent away. Failure, again. He didn’t believe Madame Ko for one second when she said he hadn’t failed -- Dom knew better. He always failed. He would never be a bodyguard, never earn the coveted Blue Diamond rank, never feel the needle of triumph mark his skin as elite. Icy wind howled past the towering open windows and Dom scrunched up in a shiver. 

This dojo had been his home for three years. By tradition, Dom knew that he would eventually be assigned to a Principal, but he hadn’t been expecting an assignment until he turned fifteen. Thirteen was far too young; it was unheard of. 

Of course, it was only natural that Madame Ko would send him away early if he was doing poorly. But was he doing poorly? Dom scrolled through his last three years of instruction as he tidied his small room. He was an excellent marksman and swimmer; he could perform CPR, pack a parachute, tie a perfect tourniquet, forge any signature, and break down and reassemble over eighty individual firearms by touch alone. He could hold his breath underwater for six minutes and fourteen seconds. Sleight of hand he had taught himself for fun, after sneaking out with some of the other acolytes to see a magic show in the village down the mountain.

So yes, he was good in the classroom. Good, even, in the wild -- Dom remembered his nine-day survival trial in Iceland and Madame Ko’s rare approval with particular pride. He was resourceful. But on the mats, Dom was nothing. On the mats, Dom failed, again and again. He took his beatings and he bore his instructors’ withering criticism. There was something missing, something wrong. He was strong and he was capable, but there was something vital that he lacked, that thing that separated a brawler from a bodyguard, a novice from a master.

Dom rolled up his sleeping mat and tucked it underneath his small set of balsa-wood drawers. Just as he was wondering which of his robes were most suitable for travel, there was a soft knock on the door of his room. The wall slid back and a white-robed acolyte nodded and handed through a small bundle of clothing. “For traveling,” she said in Mandarin, then squinted at him. “You’re young, aren’t you?”

Dom frowned, feeling another wash of uncertainty crash over him. The girl shrugged and left, and Dom stood there with the bundle of clothes and felt sick.

In the bundle was a soft cotton shirt with a high collar, dark trousers, underwear and thick socks, a big jacket, and a pair of heavy-soled leather boots.The trousers itched and the shirt felt constrictive, but the boots felt as if they had been made for him. Dom laced them up and rotated his ankles, admiring the roughed leather. He hadn’t worn proper leather shoes in months, and the structure felt good on the soles of his feet.

There was nothing else to prepare. Dom glanced around his empty room with a pang as he realized, all at once, how little he would be leaving behind. A few friends. A hunk of thumb-sized wood on the shelf, badly whittled into a rough approximation of a whistle. A coin and short rope, for practice. What else? He had nothing more. He had come to the dojo with nothing and would leave the same way. 

Sunset came too quickly, touching his white-walled room with a pinkish glow. Dom closed his eyes and tried to imagine that the sun was actually warming him, but in fact the room was rapidly cooling and he felt his fingers tingle with cold. He pulled himself to his feet and measured his breaths, concentrating on filling his whole belly with air on each inhale. A heavy knot of anxiety twisted deep inside him. 

It was time. Dom pulled in a shaky breath and left his room behind.

Madame Ko herself was waiting for him in the entranceway. She wore a long hakama in a deep burgundy, and Dom felt uncomfortably out-of-place in his unfamiliar street garb. Boots like these didn’t belong in a dojo. But neither did Dom, apparently. Maybe these clothes deserved him. He faced Madame Ko and bowed stiffly.

“You will represent our school with dignity and honor.” There was no mistaking the steely note of command in her voice. Dom slowly straightened out of his bow, noticing for the first time that he was actually of a height with his teacher. “You will protect, and you will learn. You are ready for this, young Butler.” To Dom's shock, she reached out and adjusted his jacket.

“This assignment has much to teach you,” she continued, “if you are ready to learn. Eyes open, mind alert. Do not disappoint me.” 

Dom heard heavy-booted footsteps approaching from behind him, but he couldn’t look away from Madame Ko. He was suddenly seized with a terrible fear. “What if I can’t do it?” he whispered miserably, desperately. “What if I fail?” 

Madame Ko’s expression was unreadable. “You want that diamond?” she asked, almost harshly.

Dom nodded mutely, struggling against the lump in his throat.

“Then earn it.” His sensei brushed past him to greet their visitor. Dom’s breath released in a garbled burst and he swiped at his blurring eyes. Madame Ko was right, and somewhere inside him Dom knew it. He trusted her. Maybe this wasn’t a punishment. Maybe this was a chance. 

He squared his shoulders. _I am a Butler. And I will be a Blue Diamond._

He emptied his face of emotion, uncurled his fists, and strode towards opportunity.

**Author's Note:**

> There just isn't enough about Butler, everyone's favorite strong softie, and I had to write about him. This is the first chapter in an experimental fic that will follow Butler's journey through training and his adventures pre-Artemis, something I've always been curious about. Let me know if there's an adventure you want me to include or focus on later down the line, I'll do my best :) Hope you enjoyed!


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